::eLearning Fundi::

James

In my many reflections, I have found myself looking back. In the looking back, am always very inquisitive. Asking the sort of questions that am unlikely to get answers, and even where I get the answers, am not sure of what to do with the answers. But, with time, I have learnt the most important part of reflections is moving foward. From the point where one possed to do the reflections, moving into the future.

Reflections in daily living always come when something have gone wrong. Rarely do we, as human beings, stop and reflect if everything moves smoothly or we expect it to. And therefore, as usual, my reflections is of two eLearning projects that I have worked on this year that to me have failed. I will report on one that has bothered me todate. It was on eLearning facilitation.

The eLearning course was for participants in Africa - working mainly in NGOs. It was only offered online. The reasons I documented for its failure are (with the actual feedback I got from some of the participants):

Lack of sufficient IT Skills

• “I have been trying to open and watch the video on xxx in Module 2. I have been trying for along time it cannot open”
• “Thanks again this is my yahoo mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it but i'm still learning how the chart part stands so you can continue to help me understand how it works then”.(rocketmail.com is not yahoo or ymail.com)
• “I am sorry that I have not progressed very well in the course. I had changed the password as advised. I found that I could not login with the new password. Yesterday I spent a lot of time trying to rectify this problem. I have finally been given another password by the administrator. I tried to login with the new given password I still cannot login.”

Lack of Internet Connectivity

• “Thank you James for the follow up I have had problems with our internet for the past week”
• “Indeed one rested well, however I am having challenges in getting thru, you can skype [me] on xxxxxx”

Lack of time to commit to the course

• “Thank you James for the follow up I have had problems with our internet for the past week but before that week I was doing training for the rest of the days otherwise am back to the office”.
• “Thanks for the message and the new option for the next chat. It is of great dismay to reveal that I will not be available for both chat sessions as per your proposal. I will be facilitating in a cooperative meeting in one of the rural communities here in [my country]”.
• “Dear James  ...I am well, but busy with outreach courses that I teach. I will come to the office and finish all my pending assignments”.
• One of the participants’ email addresses always had an “out of office” auto-responder.

My reflection questions were, what if all the participants in the course had the skills and access to resources required, would it have had an impact? What if they did not have the time but had all the resources and skills? What is a best match of skills and other requirements for an online learner?

Tags: eLearning | eLearning challenges | Online facilitation | Facilitation | Africa | James | eLearning Fundi | Connectivity | Internet | Lack of Skills | Time to Learn | Reflect | Reflections

James

This week I attended the Advanced African FOSS Business Models in Maputo, Mozambique as a Facilitator. The workshop was taking place at the Eduardo Mondlane Univesity (UEM). Here is my presentation

Tags: FOSS | Open Source | Business Models | FLOSS | UEM | Mozambique | Maputo | Africa | eLearning | Open Access | Online facilitation

James

I have been missing in action, rather my participation for the last few months in the blog has been low. Not that nothing eLearning has been happening with me, but just that too much was written about it and not posted here. Not also that whatever wasn’t posted here wasn’t important.
I have been thinking about what eLearning can be in Africa, if all the obstacles and barriers removed it can prosper. But wait a minute, we are always reminded and reminding ourselves of our weakness, our inadequacies, our insufficiencies, and more often of our past failures that we become pessimistic of the future, we become procrastinators or non-starters, and people who will always see and hear the back side of things. There is the usual rhetoric of seeing the opportunities, in every situation and context, where its said that a pessimist with see a glass as half-empty while an optimist will see it as half-full.
How often have we heard and read news of how Africa as a whole is no ready for the digital revolution and eLearning specifically? How often have we talked of the lack of access to digital resources in Africa, the bandwidth, the human capacity, the prohibitive and restrictive policies and regulations, the lack of ‘African’ content on the Internet, the poor electricity and related infrastructure; the lack of policy makers support; the limited or lack of financial resources; and of how our socio-cultural issues are very incompatible with what eLearning espouses? How often have we looked at closing debate on the questions of our weakness, inadequacies, insufficiencies, and past failures? Have we let these questions to blind us to the extent of seen an opportunity just because it is canvassed between illusional barriers? Have we attempted to turn this barriers (or identified Threats and Weakness in the SWOT analysis to Strengths and Opportunities)? I guess we are still seeing the glass as half full.
A story is told of how two shoes manufacturing companies in Europe sent there marketing gurus to an ancient country in the tropics to look for prospects of diversifying and extending their brands market. On reaching this country, where as it were, the natives did not wear shoes, the two gurus returned to their companies with two different verdicts. Representative of one of the companies (say Company A) reported: People in that country is so primitive that they do not, as it were, nor do they need shoes. Investing our brand in that country would be the worst thing (since the sinking of the Titanic). The marketer from the rival company (Company B) reports: The country has an explored market that is just waiting for us to venture into it. A market that we will have no competitors, and the only thing we need to do is to show the natives of the country the benefits of wearing shoes, and off we have the market for our shoes!
Incidentally, some of those doing the marketing for Africa, are seeing a market (which some would say is digitally unexplored) that has no potential or opportunity for eLearning as the case were with Company A’s representative. They fail to see how the simple possibilities, benefits, advantages, opportunities, potential and the future that come along with the use of eLearning are. It is sad, to know that most of these crusaders of inadequacies are Africans themselves. This is not to say that we do not have our shortcomings, or there aren’t any barriers or hindrances to the use of eLearning in Africa. Rather, we should first look at what we pose to benefit from in the use of eLearning, and the work on the barriers. We should not try and paint a gloomy picture of our wonderful continent just because we are looking for a collaborator or donor or development partner (or any such entity) without putting ourselves first, and knowing what we are seeking to achieve at the end. Unfortunately, this can only be achieved for the good of all if we, as a continent are devoid of the mentality of weakness, inadequacy, our insufficiency, and of fear past failures. To this end, I salute those of us who have soldiered in educating and advocating for the use of eLearning based on what we have, and what we can do – and we can reach heights only if we could use 10% of our current resources.
For one, we can achieve this by educating the masses and more importantly the policy makers of the benefits of eLearning: of the need of creating a workforce that is knowledge-economy ready that has special information- and knowledge-handling skills brought about by the use of ICTs; of the need create regional, continental and international networks that can deliver education and facilitate learning using ICTs; of the need to provide flexibility in content, delivery, pace, place and time of learning afforded to us by the use of eLearning; of the need to provide easy learning and learning process management using digital technologies like learning management systems; of the need to create repositories of intellectual and human capital that can be accessed and queried using ICTs; of the need to extend learning from the confines of a formal classroom; of the need to allow academic partnerships strengthened by the use of ICTs, and also of the need to encourage life-long learning.
Perhaps, when we do this (by showing first, then talking then letting them to do) all those who see a half-empty class will start seeing the potential of the half content of the glass, or even something that could fill the glass. Maybe this is possible, if when you all have read this; you don’t start questioning your weaknesses, our inadequacies, our insufficiencies, and your past failures BUT YOU SHOW AND TELL. You walk the talk, or simply put our money where our mouths are.

Tags: Africa | eLearning | eLearning Africa | elearning Benefits | eLearning challenges | eLearning failure | money | talk Loading

James

ROI of eLearning II
In November 2006, I posted the first section on ROI of eLearning, and posted some questions on why getting financial quantifications on gains that can be attributed to the investment on eLearning especially in Higher Education.
Recently, a JISC funded initiative continued to define and enumerate “tangible benefits” of eLearning that could be used as an indicative measure of ROI. The benefits are in a report entitled: . Among the tangible benefits identified in the report are:

• Effect on learning (e.g. context, style, insight and reflective practice)
• Effect on exam results
• Effect on student personal development (e.g. skills, employability, confidence)
• Student satisfaction with e-learning (e.g. effect on motivation, attendance and enjoyment, as shown in national survey, institutional survey, module evaluation, focus groups, or other)
• Innovation in teaching, learning and assessment (e.g. stimulus to creative approaches)
• Influence on educational research
• Staff satisfaction with e-learning
• Effect on staff personal development (e.g. skills, employability, confidence)
• Influence on recruitment (students or staff; e.g. through greater accessibility; opening up new markets)
• Influence on retention (e.g. students or staff)
• Influence on policy (e.g. institutional, faculty/school, departmental, or other extra- institutional body)
• Effect on resources (e.g. effect on cost of delivery, time, applying full economic costing to teaching and learning)
• Modifications to learning spaces (e.g. libraries, wireless networks, informal learning spaces)
• Effect on management of learning assets (e.g. institutional IP, repositories)
• Effect on a social justice agenda (e.g. widening participation, provision of space for consideration of differing or challenging perspectives).

I am yet to read the whole report but as I do, more questions that I asked in 2006 still linger. How for instance do you tell the difference in effects on learning that are as a result of eLearning? And not, say, as a result of student’s personal initiative, extrinsic motivation (e.g. having to get a job promotion after completion of a course), what is the effects of learners’ innovativeness when it comes to using technology tools that can be attributed to effects on learning? Can we measure and ascertain that good grades in an exam can be attributed to the use of eLearning only? Hopefully, I will get insights or partial answers or convincing arguments on this and more questions as I read the the report.

Tags: eLearning Returns | eLearning | Higher education | Investment | JISC | Quantifying education | Rate of return | rate of return on investment | ROI | Tangible benefits | Technology | university

James

Just seen the wonders of Wordle. All this came from the eLearning fundi site.

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

Tags: eLearning Fundi | eLearning | Wordle

James

Due to the requests and responses I have received on the presentation I made during the ICEL 2008 conference in Cape Town, I have put it up here for everyone.

| View | Upload your own

Tags: Africa | Diffusion of innovation | eLearning | elearning adoption | Higher education | Technology Acceptance | Technology Adoption

James

Are you an academic in higher education? Are you from or working in any of the following countries (Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe)? If so, you are invited to participate on an eLearning adoption survey. Click here to participate.

Over the last few decades, there has been a worldwide surge in the use of information and communication technologies (or digital technologies). There have been reported mixed results of the ‘digital revolution’ to the different angles and spheres of our daily life including education. However, there is a perceived lack in terms of both research and success stories in African higher education institutions with regard to the adoption of digital technologies in teaching and learning despite their promise and potential. There is therefore need to study and document the contributing factors, and at the same time develop frameworks and/or guidelines for successful use of digital technologies in teaching and learning, popularly known as eLearning.

You have been kindly requested to participate in a research on the adoption and use of eLearning/Learning technologies in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in selected countries in Africa. The questionnaire seeks to gather information about the perceptions, motivation, organisational and environmental factors affecting the use of eLearning with the aim of understanding the kind of interventions required for faster adoption and continued use of eLearning. The results of a statistical analysis of the data will be used to make specific recommendations on the areas of personal characteristics and attitudes, organisational realignments, technology policy, implementation, and operations for HEIs for successful adoption of eLearning

It will take you approximately 20 minutes to fill in this questionnaire. For internal validity of the questionnaire, some items may appear as if they are repeated. To fill in the questionnaire, copy and paste the following URL onto your browser: http://www.elearningfundi.net/survey/index.php?sid=37667 OR http://tinyurl.com/64lmob

Tags: adoption of innovation | African universities | Diffusion of innovation | eLearning | elearning adoption | eLearning Africa | Higher education | online initiatives | online universities | university

James

In action, the first step, or a dream is very crucial. I came across a quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too....
...Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.

Tags: Kenya | eLearning | others

James

Today I was scheduled to attend a meeting outside town, to go there and find out the meeting was postponed without notice because the main presenters were not available. I just felt it was a wasted morning, but it was good I managed to pass by the barber shop for a clean shave. The taxi that I came back with was being driven by a lady, and behind her seat there was a big sticker "I am a Taxi Driver NOT a Woman Driver". It just hit me that we might still be experiencing stereotypes on the job choices when it comes to the gender and some jobs. Anyway, I managed to reach home and start my other scheduled activities for the weekend.

I received a call to assist someone with some assignment on Break-even Analysis and Sensitivity Analysis. I just remembered this topics I had encountered them 4 or 5 years back when I was doing my undergraduate degree. I think the course name was either Decision Support Systems or Operations Research or both. Since I engage financial arithmetics when colleagues and friends seek programming solutions for their assignments (sometimes someone brought to me the Black Scholes method to optimise some solution, I could see the disappointment on his face when I told him I had never heard of Black Scholes models), I had to take it on. Luckily it was some of those very straightforward things that I could find easily after doing a very simple web search. The next minute, I was the sage in financial accounts taking someone through profit and loss calculations, break-even analysis and so much more.

However, the focus of this blog is not more on the solution, but the media used to offer the solution. We were using an Instant Messenger (IM) to communicate (for the friend was in Kenya and am more than 3000 km away). It was interesting how for example I had to minimise the formula to fit the situation. Here is a snippet of the IM chat with permission from the anonymous friend. It has breaks where I put on comments to show the advantage and disadvantages of the chat as a teaching and learning tool.

(13:29:25) Anonymous: i am in the middle of calculating break even analysis, please assist
(13:30:06) James: break even analysis....
(13:30:21) James: I came across it in decision support system in my undergrad
(13:31:27) Anonymous: it is a team case study and have got to contribute....
(13:31:42) James: is it online?
(13:31:55) Anonymous: yes
(13:32:10) James: whats the url?
(13:32:43) Anonymous: let me attach it here, coz you'll need authority to login
(13:32:51) James: ok....
(Anonymous tries the inbult IM file sending option that does not work for us. A chat is only useful for text-based communication, and mainly when the text is not extending more than a couple of lines)
(13:41:00) Anonymous: did u receive my attachment?
(13:41:24) James: let me check
(13:41:35) James: no
(13:41:47) James: send it to my email
(13:46:16) Anonymous: whats ur address
(13:46:29) James: myemailaddress
(13:47:37) Anonymous: ok, thankks
(13:47:46) Anonymous: when do u respond to it?
(13:48:07) James: we can discuss
(13:48:15) James: if you will be online
(I believe in showing people how to fish, not to give them fish. I was alse learning, and I needed to learn together with Anonymous)
(13:48:21) James: I got it now
(13:48:23) Anonymous: when
(13:54:46) Anonymous: do we discuss now or later?
(13:55:01) James: lets go through it
(13:55:17) James: do you know the calculation of the first bit?
(The assignment had eight sections. The first one was straightforward. I also wanted to know where Anony got stuck)
(13:55:33) Anonymous: yes
(13:55:48) James: second?
(13:56:06) Anonymous: no
(I know now. I offer the formula)
(13:56:17) James: for that the formula is
(13:56:22) Anonymous: calculating break even analysis
(13:56:49) James: Break even= Fixed Cost/(unit price - variable unit cost)
(13:57:01) James: simply put
(13:57:29) James: Q=Fc/(Up-Vc)
(13:57:56) Anonymous: i'll work out later
(13:58:00) Anonymous: next
(14:00:41) James: a minute
(I receive a call from a friend and have to answer it, I need to inform Anony to hold for me. With the formula Anony can be able to proceed with the calculations)
(14:07:13) James: AC=Total Cost/# of units
(14:09:10) James: Fourth
(14:10:25) James: you can use the formular for one with 150,000 units
(14:10:53) James: derived from if 40%=60 000, 100%=?
(14:11:06) James: got it?
(14:11:37) Anonymous: yes
(14:12:09) James: for four, adjust the Vc=150 000*30
(14:13:16) James: six follows the same formula
(14:13:23) James: but with 120 000 units
(14:13:56) James: ditto to seven
(14:14:04) Anonymous: ok
(14:14:13) James: and the rest are discussions
(14:14:23) Anonymous: thanks a million
(14:14:29) James: Do you see the whole picture now?
(14:14:49) Anonymous: i'll workout the rest iin the evining, i owe you one
(14:15:55) Anonymous: u going out for a drink?
(14:16:18) carice2: am not drinking this weekend
(Anony now comfortable and happy with the help so far)
(14:16:56) James: let me forward you a powerpoint ppt that I have downloaded from the net, and check out if it is helpful

From the above, the chat can be used to support and enhance teaching and learning. However, it is not possible for one to simultaneously offer support to more than a given minimum number of students. Also, its archival is sometimes limited as it is too personal to be opened up to the rest as Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) that those who might be having the same problem can refer to.

Tags: Break-even analysis | Chat | eLearning | FAQs | Sensitivity analysis | Support | Training Loading | Yahoo

James

Last night, just before I slept I wrote the blog about reading. I thought laying something about the feelings that I experience whenever I have to read will make me better prepared for a reading journey. Was I wrong, or its just another reason not to read? Anyway this is not the topic for discussion today. I just want to mention that my PhD proposal has gone through the second and most crucial stages in the process. I can now, officially say I have an admission for next year. The first stage was its development with the supervisors and departmental presentations where it went in cycles, each cycle coming back to me me with lots, and I mean lots of suggested modifications - that were time bound. The second phase is the faculty Higher Degrees committee where they gauge if a student has enough energy* to do the study. The third phase is the Senate Higher Degrees committee.

It is a long process, but for now, am concentrating on the comments of the second phase. The comments are just simple to understand, too abstract to do but doable, and too much to read. The comments are:
1. Please ensure that your proposal outline and proposed thesis outline strictly follow the faculty guidelines on proposals and thesis.
2. Ensure that you do extensive reading to get deep into your subject, refine your research methodology, and improve your proposal (it will be chapter one of your thesis).
3. Make sure the scope of work you set to do is achievable within the 2-3 years you are doing your PhD.

Seems that I will have to start reading right away, the technical outline of the proposal and thesis can be done in a day when the other things are in place.

Tags: Reading | tedious | higher degress | Higher education | eLearning

James

In doing this blog, I did not have the right title that would capture the message I need to convey. I started of with “E-learning Technology and Tools for the Medical Field” later to “Advances in e-learning tools for e-health” to “Advances in E-Learning tools for Online Health Profession and Education” and finally to the one appearing here. Although the papers discussed here are from the medical field, the tools and approaches can used in any discipline for an online learning experience. The quest to write this blog was triggered by two articles published recently, dealing particularly with e-learning tools and technologies for the medical field. Boulos, Maramba and Wheeler (2006) demonstrate a set of Web 2.0 tools available for use in the medical field while Clegg and Heap (2006) expounds on ways of dealing with the challenges of e-learning in the medical field. It is worth mentioning that both journal articles are available as “Open Access”.

Web 2.0 tools is a collection of website features that seek to take control of both their use and content to the end users and have certain characteristics like simplicity and flexibility, provision of rich user experience, compatibility with a variety of media and devices, Open to access, decentralized and using the web as a platform. These tools include but not limited to Wikis, Blogs, Podcasts, social software and RSS(Rich Site Summary/Really Simple Syndication).

Boulos and colleagues (2006) argue that the Web 2.0 tools and specifically blogs, wikis and podcasts are easy, cheap and easily available especially because they are distributed as Open Source. They continue to say that “if effectively deployed, wikis, blogs and podcasts could offer a way to enhance students', clinicians’' and patients' learning experiences, and deepen levels of learners' engagement and collaboration within digital learning environments”. Podcasts “have the potential of offering superior support for auditory learners....and visual learners in case of vodcasts”. The authors note however, that these tools have their own disadvantages like being prone to vandalism because of their openness, copyright infringements, anonymity of wiki authors especially where such wikis are to be used for assessment purposes. To counter these disadvantages the authors recommend moderation and monitoring of open wikis and blogs which can be time consuming; using a closed scenario where the access to the tools is restricted to a certain group of people; and seeking copyright/patent approvals when posting copyrighted/patented information on the blogs and wikis. On the issue of pedagogy and teaching practices, the authors recommend that “research should be conducted to determine the best ways to integrate these tools into existing e-Learning programmes for students, health professionals and patients, taking into account the different, but also overlapping, needs of these three audience classes and the opportunities of virtual collaboration between them.”

Clegg and Heap (2006) shows innovative ways that can be used to deal with the challenges of elearning, especially e-moderation in contexts where learners are independent and the tutors take the roles of facilitators and resource persons. In their paper they address the questions raised by this approach:

• How do facilitators recognize the need to intervene in discussions?

• How successful are they at recognizing potential intervention points?

• What style of facilitation is appropriate in the context of e-learning?

• How do facilitators promote independent learning within the module?

• How do facilitators balance the need to give students space to solve their own problems with the need to address anxieties that students may feel in an e-learning environment?


To deal with these questions, they review three message boards that “can be considered to represent three levels of a hierarchy of abstraction in term of the cognitive skill required by the student.” At each level, they recommend a number of facilitator interventions:

Level 1 - presenting self, relating to each other, making sense of self in relation to others; In this level, the facilitator should be responsive, nonjudgmental, encouraging, promoting discussions and descriptions, validating feelings, acknowledging concerns, giving advice on resources, and acting with prudent inaction(purposefully doing nothing).

Level 2 - relating new concepts to practice, making sense of professional relationships and clinical environments.
In this level the facilitator should demonstrate that is available and listening to the learners, probe and tease out of professional issues, give online support, providing additional resources, give positive feedback and reinforcements, raise subjects for debates and link theory to practice.

Level 3 - relating new (statistical) concepts to challenging academic materials.
At this level the students have some level of control of their learning process and the role of the facilitator is to maintain positive relationships with students, giving clear and positive feedback aimed at developing professional and academic confidence, challenging misconceptions, questioning global statements and ambiguities, encouraging students – especially on intellectual risk-taking and interactivity in difficult concepts, encouraging students independence, clarifying expectations of academic work and encouraging accuracy of referencing.

To achieve this, the facilitator needs to be equipped with facilitation skills. If facilitators adopted the model by Clegg and Heap, some of the concerns raised by Boulos and colleagues would be dealt with making a very successful learning experience for both learners and facilitators.

References

Boulos, M., Maramba, I., & Wheeler, S. 2006,Wikis, blogs and podcasts: a new generation of Web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education, BMC Medical Education 2006, 6(41). Available from http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6920/6/41 (accessed September 3, 2006).

Clegg, P., and J. Heap. 2006. Facing the challenge of e-learning: Reflections on Teaching Evidence-Based Practice through Online Discussion Groups. Innovate 2 (6). Available from http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=290 (accessed September 3, 2006).

Further Reading

O'Reilly, T,. 2005. What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software, self published on http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html [Accessed September 3, 2006]

Tags: active community | Blogs | eLearning | eLearning challenges | new generation | Online facilitation | Open Access | Podcasts | RSS | web 2.0 | web based tools

James

Why the name Fundi?

Fundi is a Zulu and Swahili word for an expert or specialist or a skilled craftsman. I have been in eLearning, in the context of Higher Educaiton both in the Kenya and South Africa. I have worked in many eLearning projects, and being a strong believer in my potential, I thing I rightly deserver the title eLearning Fundi. I believe that eLearning specifically in Higher Education in Africa is a reality that has come, that cannot be lightly wished off, that will test a Universities future success in terms of reaching out wider and newer markets. The sooner the Higher Learning institutions adopt and implement eLearning the better their chances for the future.

So what do the Higher Education institutions need to do? Lets engage in a creative discussion that would answer this question or more.

Tags: Teaching and Learning | Teaching | scholarship | learning materials | learning | colloquim | Africa | eLearning | Fundi | Higher education | Kenya | South Africa

James

Killing my curiosity this Sunday, I decided to go through the websites of the Higher Educations institutions in Kenya to check about the level and status of use of eLearning. This is where all the dons are on strike asking their respective employers to add some dimes on their plates. Whether they are justified or not to go on strike is a topic for another discussion. Now to my topic.

Elearning is my pet project, what I breath, talk, dream, see and live. I share the content, vision and proposals of the World Declaration on Higher Education for the Twenty First Century (WDHE). In WDHE's preamble it is noted that there is an increased demand for and great diversification in higher education. Higher education is presented with promising opportunities relating to technologies. However, these opportunities have been a challenge in using them to improving the information processes within the Higher Educational Institutions. Article 12 of the declaration enumerates the potential and challenges of technology that are posed to higher education. It also states that: “…higher education should lead in drawing on the advantages and potential of new information and communication technologies, ensuring quality and maintaining high standards for education practices and outcomes in a spirit of openness, equity and international co-operation. [This can be done through the adoption of a number of approaches among them]…creating new learning environments, ranging from distance education facilities to complete virtual higher education institutions and systems, capable of bridging distances and developing high-quality systems of education… [and] … taking the new possibilities created by the use of ICTs into account” (pg 8). It is this in mind that I set to audit what the situation in the Kenyan landscape.

I started off by going to the Commission for Higher Education (CHE) website (http://che.or.ke) just to look for the accredited universities. The site was so helpful in offering me the listing of the universities. However, it would have been more helpful if there was more information like the act(s) of parliament that define the universities, give the CHE its mandate among other documentation. I will not comment about the website either because it was not part of my scope when I started to look around. Also there is a disclaimer that the "Website is undergoing total reconstruction [and]..[U]sers are requested to bear with the Commission during the period when this process is being undertaken". All in all, a company has shamelessly signed the pages as the one that designed it.

According to CHE, there are 4 categories of Universities which fall within the two broad groups, private or public (http://che.or.ke). There are seven public universities in Kenya (despite the fact that the latest news have been showing six), and on the private section six private universities with charters, six registered universities and five universities "operating with Letters of Interim Authority".

Starting with the public universities, there is the University of Nairobi (UoN), where am an alumnus (http://www.uonbi.ac.ke). The university in its home page has a link to an "Elearning Platform". Clicking the link takes me to a page "On-Going Projects in the e-Learning Section of MIS". Some of the urls are inaccessible because addresses given are within the local internet domain (only accessible within the UoN network). The page has some interesting projects on eLearning going on, with a link with some 48 odd courses that are available on CD for distribution to students "owing to complaints of unstable access to the University Intranet from some campuses as well as students' limited access to computer labs". I can attest to the fact of the unstable access of the internet because it took me more than 5 minutes to get a page load from one of the listed urls on the eLearning page. Since I did not see an eLearning strategy on the eLearning page, had to go back and check if I will get the university's strategy document. There was not intuitive link on the home page, so I did my favourite, Google it. I do not manage to get anything on the university's strategy, thought there are departmental strategic plans which I only manage to download after a number of time-outs. I do not know whether this is a clear indication that the UoN does not have an eLearning strategy, or may it is just somewhere that I cannot get, for whatever reason.

Next in line in the CHE Website is the Moi University (MU). Moi University in its website does not have a link to eLearning. In the whole site, searches give only one entrance of the word eLearning. In the occurrence, there is a statement the University is working with partners on a project MU-VLIR-UOS through which the ICT center " plans to develop among others; Student Information Systems, Human Resource Information Systems, Financial Information Management Systems besides the development of a comprehensive content platform to foster e-learning at Moi University". Like the case in the UoN, a search does not return a strategy document for the university. However there are the Foreword and Acknowledgement of the document - though it was not somewhere I could easily access it on the web. Elearning seems to be a new word for MU.

The next stop is Kenyatta University (KU). It has for a long time been associated with the Africa Virtual University (AVU) which delivers its courses through eLearning. Through this association I expected to find a more developed eLearning initiative at the University than in MU and UoN. However, that was not the case. First, for 30 minutes, the site was not accessible, giving me a time-out error. Secondly, even though the site listed some programmes being offered through eLearning, there was is no cohesion between what is being offered on eLearning and what is being taught at the university. Thirdly, there was no eLearning strategy, though KU is a step ahead of the rest in that it has an eLearning site that provides some information albeit minimal for what I was looking for.

Egerton University (EU) is listed fourth in the CHE website. Although am determined to finish the review, the sites from Kenya are annoyingly slow. On troubleshooting, I find that there is a link problem between tenet (my provider) and Jumbonet and keenest. I have some reason to try once more and find that EU's site (http://www.egerton.ac.ke) does not have a link to eLearning. The only place that seems to have some activity on eLearning is its Nakuru Town Campus, whose site I cannot access for now. An excerpt of the University's strategic plan posted on the web (www.egerton.ac.ke/download/performance/Strategies.pdf) fall short of mentioning eLearning both at the ICT's strategic and the Access to Education objectives. If there are other documentations accessible on the net, they are not apparent.

In central Kenya there is the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT). Whenever I think of it, I remember Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), but this is not the topic today. The JKUAT site (http://www.jkuat.ac.ke) seems to be faster than the once I have accessed so far. A search for eLearning takes me to its eLearning site (http://kewl.jkuat.ac.ke). One sad thing though, the administrator of the site copied a story I had put for the eLearning site of the University of the Western Cape(http://elearn.uwc.ac.za) about students login with their student numbers without even editing it to remove the reference to UWC. It is just funny. Like all the other universities above, it does not have a publicly accessible strategy document, or at least I could not easily locate it. Time to go to Western Kenya.

In Nyanza, I get to Maseno University (http://www.maseno.ac.ke). Maseno's site has an image place holder to a link to "Open & Distance E-learning Programme" which is not hyperlinked. I tried al l the possible combinations and searches to no avail. Searches like ICT and eLearning returned not a single hit. I can conclude that for Maseno, eLearning is just but a pipeline dream.

Finally, for the public Universities, there is the Western University College of Science and Technology (WUST). It is listed in the CHE site without a link to its website (http://www.wust.ac.ke), and also Moi University mentions it as one of its campuses. That’s not the concern for this article though. My searches return nothing for eLearning and a few hits for ICT not related to teaching and learning. Nothing for eLearning, maybe having borrowed leave from its mother college.

On the private universities side, I start with the University of Eastern Africa, Baraton (UEAB). Its site (http://www.ueab.ac.ke) does not have a thing about eLearning or ICT. It has nice pictures though, I liked the one of the cows.

From Baraton, I head back to Nairobi's Catholic University of East Africa (CUEA). It is the only university in Kenya with a unique domain name (http://www.cuea.edu). It took about 6 minutes to load the home page. A search for eLearning and ICT brought no results. I checked on the links, and tried on the facilities link but got a 404 error (Page not found) on its links.

Daystar University's (DU) site was relatively fast to load. The first page of the site (http://www.daystar.ac.ke) has a nice picture of a lady wearing beaded ornaments. At DU, eLearning is still a foreign idea waiting for "the day dawn and the day star to arise".

Surprisingly, I did not expect the Scott Theological College (STC) to be listed as a chartered university. Its homepage (http://www.scott.ac.ke) has a picture of a computer lesson in progress. A search for the use of eLearning was in futility. I humbly conclude that for now, it cannot use ICT or eLearning to reach to its clientele.

The United States International University (USIU) Nairobi's site is pretty slow just like the site of the other universities in Kenya (despite the name). In its homepage (http://www.usiu.ac.ke) there is a link to eLearning site (http://elearn.usiu.ac.ke). Most of the eLearning links in the site are available in its intranet maybe suggesting that they current focus is students within campus. There is an externally accessible link to WebCT though. Seems eLearning is taking place at USIU. The welcome quote on the webpage??? "Welcome to The United States International University - a unique and remarkable institution of higher learning. Our concept, experienced by thousands of successful alumni around the globe, is simple: gather students from diverse cultures at a university located in beautiful surroundings and challenge them to learn". I have seen it somewhere.... is it paraphrased from one of those adverts/slogans by the Spur Restaurants?

The Africa Nazarene University (ANU) is the last stop in the Private Chartered Universities. Although ANU has taken "a different way to Higher Education" (http://www.anu.ac.ke), it has not taken the eLearning way. Although it claims to have necessary facilities to that can support eLearning in my opinion, nothing has been posted on the site as proof that it is moving in that direction.

For the remaining universities as listed in the CHE website, I would look at them when I have time. They are:

Registered Universities
The East Africa School of Theology
The Kenya Highlands Bible College
The Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology
The Nairobi International School of Theology
The Pan Africa Christian College
St Paul’s United Theological College


Universities operating under Letters of Interim Authority
The Kenya Methodist University
Kabarak University
Kiriri Women's University of Science and Technology
Agha Khan University
Strathmore University


From the brief summary above, if the websites analysis is something to go by, it is justifiable to conclude that in Kenya, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are a distance away from reaping the benefits of eLearning. My main questions for now are: Are these HEIs aware of eLearning, its potential, promises and benefits? Is there anything that is being done that has not been reflected on their respective websites? Is there anything in the pipeline in the arena of eLearning? Are there collaborative projects going on among the HEIs institutions themselves, and among HEIs and the corporate world toward eLearning use in the HEIs? What of the government? What is the government of Kenya doing to ensure and improve access to education through the use of technology?


The whole WHDE report is available from: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001419/141952e.pdf

Tags: Egerton | eLearning | Higher education | Jomo Kenyatta | Kenya | Kenyatta | Maseno | Moi | Nairobi | Technology | UEAB | university | USIU | WDHE